


Be Careful What You Wish For

by Karios



Category: Castle
Genre: Alien Invasion, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, POV First Person, Shameless Borrowing From Other Canons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-05 10:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: This time one of Castle's theories turns out to be right, unfortunately.





	Be Careful What You Wish For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [debirlfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/debirlfan/gifts).



> Deb,
> 
> Very cool prompt. I wish I'd had time to write this prompt into something much, much longer, the curse of late stage pinch hitting. I hope you like this ficlet anyway.
> 
> Thanks also for providing the perfect summary.

_They refused to tell me anything more than that Beckett is alive. They won't let me see her, anyone, not even a mirror and I don't know why. I’ve tried to piece together what I remember..._

The week began ordinarily enough, at least what passes for within in the realm of ordinary at the precinct. Espo brought in a suspect whose clothing looked like the canvas of a Jackson Pollock done only in pink, red, and brown hues. I came into the conversation between Espo and Beckett halfway through.

“He was practically begged to be arrested,” Espo was saying, “but other than that, not much out of him. Mostly tears, and muttering the phrase, ‘I never wanted it’.”

“It?” Beckett asked, her gaze shifting toward the interrogation room. “Some kind of prank gone wrong, maybe?”

Espo shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe you'll have better luck with him?”

Beckett turned and walked toward the interrogation room. Espo and I followed, taking up residence in observation. I watched as Beckett did her thing, the blend of good cop/bad cop, logical versus emotional appeal that could have made Plato jealous.

I watched the young man at whom Beckett’s cop mojo was directed, one Jeremy Collins. He couldn’t have been older than Alexis by a decade, but he seemed to grow younger with each question, squirming in between shaking sobs and blowing his nose on proffered tissues. Occasionally, he’d look down and jolt his head upright again at the sight of his bloodsoaked clothing.

Eyes firmly fixed on studying the ceiling, Jeremy was finally able to talk. “You gotta believe me.”

“Believe you about what?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Her?”

"My girlfriend. I thought-I thought I had it under control. I was stupid. So stupid. But I didn’t mean to hurt her. I loved her.” Overcome, Jeremy attempted to bury his face in his hands but only succeeded in leaving russet-colored streaks on both sides of his face. “You gotta lock me up.”

“You hurt your girlfriend,” repeated Kate, slowly. I’d seen it work before, draw more out of a suspect. That day was no exception.

“They say I stabbed her,” clarified the young man, with a long sniff. "The other detectives. But I wouldn’t. _I_ wouldn’t.”

“Do you know how many people come through here and claim they wouldn’t, couldn't ever, didn't do it? Nearly all of them,” she answered her own question. “If you didn't do it, then tell me who did.”

“I don't know what happened,” Jeremy tried, the words dripping with misery. “I was asleep.”

"So you're saying someone broke into your house, repeatedly stabbed the woman you love while she was asleep with your arms, and managed to leave all without waking you up? I've heard of heavy sleepers, but what you're suggesting is absurd."

“It sounds impossible, I know. But there's been all this noise in my head, so I’ve been exhausted lately. All I know is I went to bed with her last night and woke up like this.”

“We’ll send in a psychologist to explain it to you, Mr. Collins.” Beckett got up to leave and her interrogator tone faded to something softer. “And we’ll get you cleaned up soon.”

"I don't think he did it,” I said, as soon as Beckett made it to this side of the wall.

“Castle,” she huffed. “I know it was rough in there, but come on. He confessed. He marched into the precinct covered in...evidence.”

“What if there's something more going on? Did CSU find the knife?”

Espo answered, “No.” I must have looked happy about it because he continued. “But Jeremy called the body in. He could have pitched it, destroyed it, gave it to someone before we got there.”

“Doesn't really look like he had the wherewithal to go destroying evidence.”

Espo took another look at the sobbing, shivering man in the interrogation room. “Could be before the remorse kicked in. Or he’s a good actor.”

"If he’s acting, he should be on Broadway, not in lock up. I'm just saying, if it were me in there, I'd want someone to consider all of the angles."

Beckett sighed. "What's your theory then?"

I faltered. "I don't have one. Yet. Werewolves maybe," I added, unconvincingly if Beckett’s exasperation face was anything to go by. “Claws would approximate knife wounds. And Jeremy wouldn't remember anything he did in an altered state.”

“There wasn't a full moon last night,” Espo put in.

“And there are a half dozen explanations that make more sense. Sleepwalking, temporary psychosis, traumatic amnesia. Collins’s lawyer will argue insanity, or whatever else,” she amended with a glare at me. “Doesn't change the fact that he did it.”

* * *

 

_The next thing I remember is the next body. The woman with the..._

“Scoop marks,” I noticed as I crouched near the body. Even with the bloat it was taking on from a steady falling autumn drizzle, I could make out a set of dimpled indentations all over her midsection. “Forget werewolves. We've got aliens, straight out of the X-files kind of aliens.”

It was early, and a soggy Beckett tried to ignore me.

“Look at these and tell me they look like anything else you’ve seen.”

Beckett was a picture of the idiom, ‘you could see the gears turning’ as she racked her brain for a more terrestrial, and everyday explanation, “black market organ donation gone wrong,” she countered.

“Very wrong,” I said because...I noticed her outfit. “People who are desperate enough to sell their kidneys don't usually go to bed in five-hundred dollar Olivia von Halle silk pajamas. When Beckett didn't answer right away, I added “I know fashion” to fill the space.

“I know,” she said, waving me off. “Wait, what's this?” She pointed to a puddle of liquid around the victim’s head.

“Doesn't look like any puke I’ve ever seen. Looks more like”

“Bubble soap,” Beckett said, echoing my thoughts.

“Mixed with food coloring.”

“Get samples of that,” Beckett instructed one of the CSU guys.

* * *

 

_And then we went to see Lanie..._

“I’ve got bad news and more bad news,” she announced as we came in.

I jumped in then, “Any progress on the stab wounds?”

“Not much. Downward angle, blade of at least six inches in length, either jagged or just really sloppily removed.”

“Alright, not much further along on our already solved case,” Beckett replied. “What about those fluid samples we brought in?”

“You’re not going to like that either. We tested it against everything we could think of. We sent it out and two more labs repeated our work and then some.” She paused.

“And?” prompted Beckett.

“The consensus is there's nothing like it anywhere on Earth.”

She groaned. “He's gotten to you too.”

I was annoyed. It wasn't my fault everything was coming up aliens. It didn't help that Lanie was on Beckett's side.

“It's weird but that doesn't mean it's little green men level weird. Probably just contaminated from however long she was out there in that parking lot. It was raining that night?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Evidence degrades. We don't want it to happen, but it happens.”

* * *

 

_The woman, Vanessa Eastinbay, was identified by her parents. Jeremy Collins was charged, and pleaded an insanity defense. And that should have been the end of it. Just two weird cases. Unsatisfying conclusions were, while less likely on our watch, still possible. Beckett had taught me that. Hell, our own lives had reinforced that. We must have went back to other murders, cases of wrath, envy, lust, or greed. Each ‘deadly’ sin paling in comparison to what we didn't know was coming._

_Because there were more cases just like ours, more women with strange abdominal scars, other unexplained stabbings. Not just in New York, but in LA, and Chicago. Then Geneva, Marrakesh, Auckland. Someone must have pushed a little deeper, and managed to connect the dots._

_Word got out. But it didn't change anything. Well almost anything._

“It’s so normal. The sun’s still shining. The streets are still annoyingly crowded. You’d think it's an ordinary day.”

Beckett pulled me to face her, lowering her voice. “It’s like that time with the bomb, or any of the other threats we’d faced. You don't really know unless you're on the inside.” She pulled me close and I held her for a long moment.

“This is different. It’s public. I expected chaos, pandemonium, rioting in the streets. An apocalypse before the apocalypse.”

“How many hundreds, thousands of alien reports have there been?” she challenged. “Denial is powerful. If you had a choice. If it were still possible to think it was crazy. To just keep going about your life, wouldn't you?”

“You believe me.” My voice came out in a strained whisper.

Beckett nodded and the world seemed to lurch. “I believe you, about Eastinbay, and Collins and we'll face this end like the others and hope...”

She waited, presumably for me to say something helpful. “Can you hear that?” I asked instead.

“Hear what?”

“That music!”

“No..." Her eyes narrowed like when she was piecing together an investigation. "Castle, are you alright?” With difficulty, I brought my eyes to meet hers, but she must not have liked what she saw because her own eyes became wild, unfocused. She took a half step back. Her looking at me with that kind of fear broke my heart.

“I don't think so.” For a moment, we froze. A long pause where all I could seem to do was listen to theshort tune, a handful of notes on a loop.

"Beckett. Kate," I called out tentatively, as she backed even further away. The tone increased to a sharp high pitched wine, boring into my head with the delicacy of a jack hammer with an egg beater attachment. I screamed her name this time, but I can't hear it, I can only feel myself screaming. Feel as the muscles in my throat contracted, the way my jaw locked into place.

I was still screaming when Beckett drew her gun. I wanted desperately to turn around. I had to believe it wasn't aimed at me. Not that it mattered, I was frozen in place by the intensity of the hum.

Beckett was talking but I couldn’t hear her, couldn't hear anything, except the noise inside my head. But I could read her lips, lips which begged me to stand still. 'Please god, stand still, and look at me. Right at me. Don't look down.'

I tried to obey, but I hated seeing her like this. Tears pouring from her eyes, gun hand wavering.

_The very last thing I can remember is tearing my eyes away her face. I had to look down. I had see because I always have to know. I wrench my eyes shut, focusing, but all I can see is a brilliant gleam of...metal._

__

_Oh god, what have I done?_


End file.
